Topic: The Adventures of Kith, the Cat, and the Khatun
Subject: Transit Time
The chair guy, Kith thought, remembering the attack at the inn from that morning and watching Aranwen impressively cut down another skeleton, the doll slam at the apothecary--that one hurt very badly--and then whatever it was that puppet witch did to my head just now. She felt as though her head may have taken another hit or two today, but who could really know, with so many concussions in such a short amount of time? Of what she could remember, her tally was up to three.
Her head still pounded as she kicked away an arm swinging for Ch’dau, leaving the creature open to allow for the big cat to turn its head to dust. The small cleric ran past her to land a crushing blow to the rotting femur of another of this dwindling horde, relinquishing it of its attack against her as she found her footing. She tossed her blade into its cracked forehead, and as Aranwen had mentioned earlier with her arrows, stabbing did little to stall its pursuit. It did however knock its head back for just long enough for the bladesinger and her new, odd song, to finish it off, tearing off limbs and joints with her sword until the thing was not much more than a pile of dust.
Aranwen pulled the Sylvari blade from the creature and tossed it gently back to Kith, who caught it easily and gave her a small salute in appreciation. The Syl went back to work, singing in an oddly, artfully broken way, and Kithran pulled Mosic back away from another skeletal onslaught, giving Ch’dau the space to relieve the thing of its skull with one swift swipe of his falcata.
“It’s probably best if you and I are only in that for a moment or two, priest,” she said, gesturing to the wall of bones the Sylvari and Kazari were making their way through, “They are much better at this than we are. In and out, alright?”
The Cidal priest nodded absently at her words, his eyes unwavering from the barrage ahead of them.
Kith crouched down, noticing his heaving breaths, and poked him hard in the face.
“Hey!” He jerked his head away, “This is hardly the time, Kithran.”
“Are you okay, Mosic? You look like you’re about to lose your mind.” She poked him again and he finally looked back at her, “We have enough of that, so if you’re going to lose it, you should let us know.”
“I’m not going to lose my mi-”
Kith suddenly turned to their front line and threw a dagger at one of the skeletons on Ch’dau, and her other dagger at one of the ones attacking Aranwen, then turned back to the priest, “Sorry, please continue.”
Mosic sighed, “Thank you for your concern, but I will be okay. I am just not used to, to all of this.”
“Yes,” she nodded, “I imagine it is very frightening.”
He gave her a quizzical look, “You don't seem as moved by these things. Do you do this very often?”
“Mmhmm, last night was my first time.”
“That isn’t very often, Kith.”
“Well, I had a weird dream once.” She suddenly looked deep in thought, “There were skeletons like this, and these walking rotting corpses coming after me. But the strangest thing was that they were all incredibly horn--”
“Kithran,” Ch’dau called from where he and Aranwen stood flat against the wall ahead, and Kith could swear she heard Mosic mumble a thanks to Falloes for the interruption, “guards ahead!”
The half-Syl jumped to her feet and moved backwards toward the others, “I am scared too, Mosic, but I’m keeping it together because I have a goal I need to achieve. Yours is to help us, to keep us safe. Try only focusing on that instead of whatever it is these witches concoct for us, okay?” She didn’t wait for his answer, turning to pick up her daggers, and pulled her shortbow off her shoulder.
“There are about six of them ahead,” Aranwen said as Kithran approached, and she noticed fresh blood dripping from the bladesinger’s arm, “They all have swords, but they’re also armed with crossbows, and seem to be trigger-happy,” she glanced down at her arm, then back to Kith, “Ready?”
Kith grinned, pulling out an arrow and setting it on her bow, “Let’s go,” and she crouched down.
Aranwen nodded and thrust her blade out into the open hall, waving it around as bolts soared past. As they lodged themselves into the walls beyond them, Kithran dropped on her knees into the hall, releasing two arrows into the joints of the closest guards before shouting at her comrades.
“Archers down and reloading!”
With a deafening roar, Ch’dau burst into the hallway ahead of her, staggering the guards as he barreled into them, Aranwen’s song behind him, and Kithran’s arrows satisfyingly sinking into their marks. She much preferred fighting the living to the dead.
A hand rested on her bow arm as the other reached for another arrow, and she turned again to Mosic, “Thank you, Kithran.”
“Of course. I can’t have you falling apart when I need some healing, you know?” She grinned and went back to tearing holes into their enemies.
“I know.” The Cidal priest then gripped his maul tightly in both hands, and charged forward to join the others in their fight. It did not last long. Between the four of them, Adedre’s guard was cut down in mere minutes, and the door to Kithran’s quarry lie no longer impeded, ahead of them.
Pulling what arrows were still viable from walls and corpses, Kithran rejoined the others, who had all stopped to catch their breath in the seconds she took to scavenge. “You all look very tired. Shall we take another eight hours, or…?”
“Not all of us took time to sit and chat in the middle of the battle, Little Kitten,” the Kazari rumbled teasingly.
“I’m not a--” she sighed and shook her head, “We’re supposed to look out for each others’ minds, that’s all I was doing.”
Aranwen seemed to catch her breath at that statement, and turned to the Falloes priest as well, “Was it Morgana? Did she attack you, Mosic?”
“No,” he shook his head, “a bit of fear came over me, Kithran was just helping me through it.”
Kith shrugged at the others, “Don’t get the wrong idea, it was entirely self-indulgent. My book is beyond those doors, are you all ready now?”
“I’ve been ready,” the Kazari snarled, his turquoise eyes poised at the door, “I am going to beat her with her own rotting leg.”
“Exciting. Aranwen?”
“I suppose.” The bladesinger looked more pensively toward their destination, resting a moment in thought before addressing them again, “It’s difficult to be entirely ready when you have not seen what is on the other side of a door.”
“That’s true,” Kithran acknowledged, her excitement at the near completion of her mission briefly over-shadowed by thoughts of more bone spiders, more doll creatures, something worse than either of those things. She looked back to the Sylvari and Kazari, “What’s the plan?”
Posted on 2020-02-13 at 02:57:56.
Edited on 2020-02-13 at 13:51:05 by breebles
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